Wow, it feels like FOREVER since I finished my last piece! This year has not been conducive to creating art. I’ve done my best despite the circumstances which kept popping up (moving, medications, long ME flares, devoting a ton of time to the gallery show, stress from my recent battle among other things) but it’s felt like a very dry year creatively. All I can do is my best though, and even when the ME really cramps my style, I still manage to get pieces finished… just much more slowly than I would like.

It was in this depressed feeling of “I haven’t created anything in the longest time imaginable” that today’s image was born. When my regular creative outlets are blocked to me (by, say, solid weeks of migraines as I adjust to each new medication dosage), I become despondent and depressed. Life slowly loses its flavor and color and if I’m not careful, I’ll sink into a pit of despair just like Artax in The Neverending Story. Luckily, I have Geoff and my friends and family around to cheer me on and make sure I never sink too low, but much of it is outside of anyone’s control.

As I mentally pictured how I felt, this was it. A big, ugly cloud of despair, depression, worthlessness, swirling around my head. But this time, unlike my last self portrait which explored a similar theme, I wanted to show a bit of hope at the same time. The cloud is surrounded, penetrated and pierced by beautiful, golden rays of light. They stream in through the darkness, weaving through its thick blackness. The darkness cannot survive in the light. It will be broken up and dissipate. And while I know this will probably not be my last battle with depression, I also know that each round will eventually be over… and once again, the light will have won. That is the hope I cling to when the clouds cover me.

I’d like to mention my friend and very talented photographer Robert Cornelius’s Dust to Dust series as it provided some inspiration in my planning out of the darkness cloud. Thanks, Robert! 🙂 He’s an incredible photographer and all-around cool dude, so check out his work if you’re not familiar with it!

This image belongs to my Eternal Storms series on depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. These topics are still seen as quite taboo to discuss, something I hope to help with by portraying what living with them is like openly and honestly. Silence and shame never helped a single illness get cured. We need to be able to speak openly about our experiences, without judgement or fear, if we’re ever going to healed from them.

Do you have depression? Try being a little more honest next time a trusted friend asks how you are. You don’t have to go into excruciating detail, but try to avoid the temptation to simply answer “fine,” unless you actually are. And if you have friends or family who you suspect or know suffer from any kind of mental ailment? Invite them to tell you about it, ask some questions, assuring them that talking to you is safe and you will not judge them or call them crazy. It is crucialthat you answer whatever they tell you with love. It is incredibly hard for people to open up and talk to others about these problems, so take their trust very seriously and treat it with the gentlest and greatest respect.

As we approach Thanksgiving, let’s be thankful for the help and support we have. For the people dedicated to helping us win our fight. For the people who will listen to us with only love and understanding in their hearts. The people who give us hope. The inner strength we are able to find when we think we’ve exhausted it all. Those extra beams of light when we need them the most. We need more people like this in the world. Let’s try and all be them to each other. The simple fact that there are people in the world who try to reach this goal is something I am very thankful for!

Before I get into this post, I wanted to again thank EVERYONE who prayed, lit candles, sent me good thoughts and energy about my battle on Wednesday. I don’t have an answer yet, and most likely won’t for a while, but it did go quite a bit better than I was expecting. I am guardedly hopeful for a successful outcome. And regardless, I went in, faced a terrifying situation and did my best. Whatever happens, I can take comfort in that. So thank you all, from the bottom of my heart; I’m sure all that good energy truly helped. For those inclined, I wouldn’t mind your continued blessings until I hear the outcome! And I’ll try and let you know what the outcome is as soon as I can.

Now, on to this post!

I’ve had some exciting news that I’ve been quiet about for a while, but I can finally spill the beans today! You guys all remember how I’ve been working with Connor Cochran from Conlan Press, publisher of Peter S. Beagle, one of my two literary heroes? It’s all coming together 🙂

This is so incredibly fulfilling and amazing to me! I began creating images inspired by Peter’s work long before I’d ever met him or had any personal interaction with him. I just genuinely LOVE his work and it made me want to create images based on how his writing made me feel. It’s a little surreal to now have my work on his covers, but absolutely wonderful 🙂

SMÉAGOL, DÉAGOL, AND BEAGLE: ESSAYS FROM THE HEADWATERS OF MY VOICE by Peter S. Beagle. 2015 Conlan Press ebook edition (Kindle exclusive). Brand-new nonfiction by Peter — a collection of original essays exploring the roots of his own voice as a writer, and the people and works that have been his greatest influences. Cover photo by Sarah Allegra, processing and design by Connor Cochran. Model: Bryce Rankins. Click here to be taken to Amazon!

So please click on any of the above images to be taken to Amazon where you can see what titles are being offered and pick up your favorite ones! And if you’re new to Peter S. Beagle… well, you’re in for a BIG treat.

If you’re liking the idea of this but don’t own an e-reader, don’t worry. New hardcover editions of these titles will be available in the near future and the plan so far is for at least most of the covers to remain the same.

Many, many thanks to Connor Cochran, Charlie Petit and Peter S. Beagle for choosing to use my images and working so hard to make the covers look so beautiful. I am truly honored. Thank all you, my dear readers and friends, for your support, any purchases you may make and extra special shout-out to Katie Johnson, Bryce Rankins and Patrick Reid for their modeling in their images! We’re all on book covers!!

This image is a little bit “out of order,” so to speak. The Apprentice is, obviously, an apprentice, but to someone you haven’t met yet, although you will. In an ideal world, I would have shown you the Apprentice’s mistress first so it made more sense why she is out collecting herbs and plants and other ingredients, but you’ll have to just trust me on this for now 🙂 Hopefully I’ll be able to show you her mistress soon, but that’s going to be a pretty complicated shoot.

This image is extra special because it features a new model for me, Noemi Regalado. Noemi is not someone who actively pursues modeling like most of the other people I work with. She happened across my work and sent me an email asking if she could be a part of it. Of course I said yes! It took us a little while to find a time to shoot (which was all my fault; I think she first wrote me right around the time of my first sinus surgery and we know how that turned out. And it seems nothing has calmed down since then!) but eventually we got a time set that worked for us both.

In a way, I’m a little glad that we had a few months to email back and forth and get to know each other a little more before the shoot although I’m sure the wait was maddening for Noemi! (She will probably deny this because she’s very laid-back and easy going, but still. Waiting sucks.) In the course of our email exchange I learned that she has had her own health battles despite only being about the same age as I am. She is a cancer survivor, currently completely in remission, and I suspect that she will stay that way. She is a gentle soul but I know she fought that cancer out of her body. She also participates in mud runs, something I probably would never have had the endurance for even before ME, and since her apartment only allows very small dogs, she volunteers regularly at a German Shepherd rescue group. Every couple weeks she goes down, takes a dog out for a nice walk, socialization and a whole lot of love. Then she repeats the process several times. If that’s not one of the best examples of making lemonade from lemons that you’ve heard, I don’t know what to tell you 🙂 Shelter dogs have SO MUCH up against them, even the smallest gesture of love and attention can go a long, long way toward helping that dog find his or her forever home. And so far she has been directly responsible for at least one Shepherd finding a home with a friend of hers! I’m sure there will be more.

As you can see, Noemi is a very cool chick! I wanted to come up with some concepts for her which would fit with her personality and her willingness to get uncomfortable and messy for a photo. We ended up shooting two concepts; this first one that you’ll see today, as I said, is a DreamWorld image, and the second one, which I have not yet edited, will show off her willingness to do what it takes to get the shot. And I have to say, she was a great model! She took direction very well and had a better knack for it than some “actual” models I’ve come across 😉

So, let me tell you a little about making Noemi’s mask/headdress for this shot! It all started with this lovely purple mask which I found at Rite Aid, of all places, on one of my many, many trips there to pick up prescriptions. The color really caught my eye, I thought it would compliment Noemi well and I also noticed that it was less expensive than the completely blank, white masks at the craft store! And no built-in swirls with the blank white masks either. So that was a pretty easy decision to buy it.

Trying on the mask for research, NOT just because it was fun 🙂

But of course it can’t just be a basic mask, even if it looked very pretty in its basic form. The first thing I did was cover it with a layer of lace, which happened to be a remnant cut from my wedding dress (because, surprise!, it was too long ;)).

After brushing on a layer of fabric glue, I started with a layer of EXTREMELY glittery purple paint.

It doesn’t look interesting wet…

But it dries into a really stunning color!

Then I did some trimming on the lace to get the edges to match those of the mask itself.

At this point, I knew I wanted to put some leaves and flowers on it, but I didn’t know much more than that. So I dragged out my fabric stash (what you’re seeing here is what I’d been able to buy during a HUGE sale!), my glue gun and just started messing around.

I knew I wanted to extend the sides of the mask with leaves, so I started there. Maynard helpfully modeled this part for me.

Maynard is an awesome model, even when he’s not facing the camera

You can also see that I’d added a bit of black ink around the eye holes, rather like eyeliner. Just a subtle touch to help draw the viewer’s eye since there was going to be a fair bit going on.

I just played around with different colored flowers and shapes, holding them in place, tweaking things here and there and then suddenly I had a finished mask! I hadn’t planned on giving it so much vertical volume, that just sort of evolved naturally, but I liked how it looked so I went with it. Some costumes I have planned out in precise detail before I ever start them, but others are more free-form, like this was. Always listen to your gut 🙂

A mask! Photos from here out are taken in the bathroom to protect it from over-eager cats.

As I looked at it the next day, I felt like it was 95% there but it needed… something. I didn’t know what. I mulled it over and when I woke up the next morning I knew it: mercury silver spray paint.

Krylon’s Looking Glass spray paint is no ordinary silver paint. It has a truly magical quality to it and I end up using it in almost every costume or prop I paint. Just the slightest mist gives it a mysterious, magical, ethereal touch. I try to always keep a couple cans on hand because I never know when I’ll suddenly need them.

So that morning I took the mask outside and let the paint gently kiss the mask; just enough to give it that magical feeling without taking away the beautiful colors of the paint and flowers. In the photos below (which are a little blurry, sorry, they were taken on my phone) the top photos show details of the flowers unpainted and the bottom have had their silver wash.

Flowers with and without Looking Glass paint

I filled a basket with appropriately magical-looking items and herbs but it didn’t make it into the final image. Oh well. You can see just a little of the vial necklace I made full of purple stones and beads and the gorgeous amulet/brooch. Jewel tones just loved Noemi’s beautiful skin tone!

And now I’ll let you see the completely finished image along with some detail shots! The show trees had just started blooming in the woods and the wild queen anne’s lace was bountiful. Both made a beautiful, more neutral backdrop against Noemi’s vividly colored mask and costume.

Thanks to Noemi for being so patient through all this! I’m very glad to have made a new friend though all this 🙂 And I’m very happy with how this turned out! You’ll all just have to wait a little while longer to see the image where Noemi really proved her devotion to the finished image 😉

I like to think of the Storm-Bringer as the counterpoint to the Wind Goddess:

Where Earth Meets The Sky

They have similar powers and both rule over the sky, but one brings the weather we like, while the other brings that which we don’t like. Which is not to say that the Storm-Bringer is an evil character; not at all. Storms are useful to the world in a variety of ways; bringing rain is just one of them. While me might prefer one over the other, both are needed and they balance each other.

This image was actually not one I’d set out to create. Katie and I were shooting something else entirely, which had nothing to do with DreamWord, but when I sorted through the raw images, one of them really caught my eye. I was shooting about Katie (from the second story of my mom’s house) and an image where she was flipping her hair around sparked something in me. I looked at the next few frames where her hair continued its circular flip and thought it would look cool if I blended them all together.

Just for the hell of it, I brought the images into Photoshop and started playing around… and I played some more… and some more, and then I had a finished piece which I really loved! As I looked at the finished image, I realized I’d created a new DreamWorld character without having planned it, but her story quickly formed inside my head.

We cannot have a world where there are only beautiful, sunny days. Even an imaginary world. The dark needs the light and the light needs the shadow, otherwise it would be a flat, saccharine depthless place. DreamWorld started initially as an escape, and more importantly, not something I expected to turn into such a long, rich, detailed place as it has. It is still my escape, but I can now fill in some of the darker areas along with the joy and sunlight. A story isn’t a story without a conflict, without a villain. Using a religious metaphor pioneered by Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, a trinity (father, son, holy spirit) is inherently incomplete. And one more facet to it, making it a quaternity (father, son, holy spirit and devil) and it becomes complete and self-sustaining. The dark and the storms enhance the light, but the light will always defeat the dark.

Though, if we’re speaking purely of wish-fulfillment, I would never have a bright, sunny day. I would fit in very well somewhere like Portland or Seattle, since my favorite days are the gray, overcast ones, a little on the cool side. In my perfect world, every day would be like that, but even I realize the need for a storm now and then to shake things up 🙂

***WARNING: this post will contain spoilers for this season of True Detective. Turn back now, ye who have not seen it.***

There. With the formalities out of the way, we can settle in and chat 🙂

I don’t believe I have ever witnessed such a frenzied, overwhelming reaction to a television show in such a short amount of time. True Detective was only eight episodes long. I knew, for myself, that I was going to be completely obsessed with it by the second episode; I warned Geoff about it and that I was going to have to buy it on DVD the very moment it came out. You all probably know by now how I tend to obsess over things.

For anyone unfamiliar with True Detective, it is an eight-episode series which recently ran on HBO. It tells the story of Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, two detectives who are partnered together to solve a serial killer murder mystery. The show jumps around from 1995, when they believe they solved the crime, and 2012, when it rapidly becomes obvious that something is amiss; the killer was not apprehended after all.

What impressed me so much was how strongly the entire internet reacted to the show. Within those same short, first few weeks the internet exploded with True Detective interest, and by the finale, the fervor was so high that fans streaming the episode through HBO GO crashed the network’s servers. This is the kind of rabid loyalty that usually takes years to build up, like with Breaking Bad, for example. Both shows completely deserved the devotion given to them, but it intrigues me that True Detective was able to accomplish this in a mere eight weeks. What is so different about this show?

Like the very best art, it’s extremely difficult to parse out exactly what makes it so special. True Detective was pure magic, and I don’t believe it’s something that can be distilled down to a formula and repeated endlessly. But I’m still going to take a stab at defining what I think people, including myself, are responding to so strongly.

1. Relateable, real, unique characters. Marty Hart and Rust Cohle, played by Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey respectively, are fascinating. They are fully realized, flawed, broken men but they still try to do good and make a difference in the world. Whether you’re more of a Hart or a Cohle (guess which one I am – HAH), you’ll find someone to identify with.

These men both deserve Emmys and any and all awards given out to television performances for their acting. To be honest, I’d never really gotten Matthew McConnaughey before. True Detective completely changed my opinion of him; I was absolutely blown away. Woody Harrelson is, of course, spectacular as well, but I went in expecting to enjoy his work. McConnaughey’s jaw-dropping performance in scene after scene was a revelation to me.

2. A script which treats its audience with respect. You will not be talked down to here. There is no spoon-feeding of the audience. You are expected to pay attention and remember clues dropped in one episode and discovered in another. Nothing has been dumbed-down and it’s incredibly refreshing. I want my shows to challenge me, to engage me, to literally take me on a journey. True Detective does all that and more.

3. Myth and metaphor. If you’ve seen any of the series, you’ve probably already read about how much of it was inspired by Robert W. Chambers’ 1895 classic work The King In Yellow. The King In Yellow is a collection of short stories about a fictional play within the stories by the same name. The first act of the made-up play is safe but it lures you into reading the second act. Anyone who reads even a few words of the second act is shown such horrific truths about the universe that they’re driven insane. Carcosa, The Yellow King, masks (both literal and metaphoric, masking who you truly are), black stars, the sign of the Yellow King, truth about the world bringing on madness, it all stems from The King In Yellow. This is the kind of thing that really excites me. And yes, I did read the entire King In Yellow between episodes just enhance my viewing pleasure. This is the kind of loyalty the show inspires. While it is certainly possible to watch the show and enjoy it without having delved into hundred-year-old, obscure literature, you want to for True Detective.

I have always been a proponent of the power of myth and metaphor. Its something that I try to use as often as possible in my own work. They are an incredibly strong force, which is rarely drawn on in television; certainly not to this degree.

Take the detectives’ names. Marty (Martin) Hart and Rust (Rustin) Cohle. Marty; the warm, personable, passionate, fiery, family-man-with-something-on-the-side. Martin is derived from Mars, Roman god of war and means “warring.” “Warring,” whether against the killer he hunts or the banalities of daily life, and “heart” are two perfect words to sum Marty up. “Rust” and “coal” are perfect expressions of Rustin Cohle; bleak, nihilistic and emotionless. Rust only occurs on metal, an element which is the perfect metaphor for Rust, cold and strong, but wounded, and we watch him disintegrate a little bit at a time. Coal… I can think of nothing better to describe Rust’s heart after his young daughter’s death, which sent him down this path of meaninglessness and hopelessness. But like real coal, there is the potential to change into something utterly different and glitteringly beautiful.

The more you pay attention to the show, the more subtleties you pick up on. Pay attention to how the color yellow is used, for example. Scenes that have the most to do with the killer are the most yellow. When Rust makes Marty view the VHS tape of Marie Fontenot’s murder, not only is the whole screen is saturated in yellow, it’s a clear metaphor for Marty having read the “second act.” And after you’ve read the second act, there is no going back. Things can never be the same.

Myth and metaphor are so cleverly and generously used, I could go on for pages about it, but you get the idea. I think you’ll have more fun if you watch the show and try to pick out the references yourself 🙂

I also love how the show uses classic noir and literature traits, like showing peoples’ reactions to horror instead of the horror itself. It’s an underused and extremely effective method of story-telling, not to mention underscores the mysterious tone of the entire show.

5. Healing and redemption – and the twist-within-a-twist ending. You expect, this being a show about two detectives solving a crime, even though by now you know you’ll see something more than that, that the show will end on a climax of Marty and Rust catching the killer. And they do catch their killer… who ends up being at once creepier and more ordinary than you had expected the grand Yellow King to be, which feels like a very authentic picture of actual murderers. Twist one. Marty and Rust catch their Yellow King about halfway through the last episode, giving them almost another 30 minutes to fill. Why would they need the extra time, you wonder. To finish the story. To really finish the real story.

What’s the real story? As Rust says, it’s the oldest story, of light verses darkness. Not just in the grander sense of of Marty and Rust catching their man, but of them facing the darknesses within their own lives. For Marty, this means seeing the family he destroyed years ago with his multiple affairs. And while things are far from all forgiven and forgotten, the show makes it clear that the fact that his ex-wife and daughters are even in the same room with him is a huge hurdle to have crossed. Marty is not ok. His family is not ok. But now, finally, things can begin to heal and just maybe, they will be ok some day.

And then there’s Rust. Rust, who began to withdraw from the world years and years ago when his young daughter was suddenly killed. Rust, who wants to hurry up and catch their man because his entire life has been “a circle of violence and degradation as long as I can remember” and he wants to end it as soon as his work is done. You can’t blame him for feeling that way. I think he expected he would die in the final confrontation with the killer, which very nearly did happen, but he finds himself alive still at the other end, after awakening from the coma his wounds put him in. What’s left for our nihilistic, philosophical, misanthropic hero?

A lot, it turns out. Our emotionless, cerebral, steely man, who I can remember smiling only once during the whole series, breaks down sobbing. In his coma, he had a vision of the afterlife where he encountered his father’s and daughter’s spirits, and moreover, he encountered their love. Love which continued beyond death. Which wiped away any disappointments his father may have had for him in life, any guilt he may have felt over his daughter’s death. He was wrapped in pure love, something he had never experienced before.

It profoundly effected him. When Marty, looking up at the night sky observes that the dark seems to have a lot more territory, Rust responds with “Yeah, you’re right about that… But you’re looking at it wrong… Once, there was only dark. If you ask me, the light’s winning.”

Twist two. The entire show wasn’t about them catching the Yellow King. The entire thing led up to this moment, when Marty and Rust are reconciled, the healing has begun, and Rust has his first moment of optimism. Healing and redemption. Light verses dark. That’s what we’d been watching this whole time.

So how does my self portrait tie in? In a lot of ways actually. Most obviously, it’s a reference to the starry night Marty and Rust philosophize under, the hope and beauty they were able to find. The yellow is obvious as well, and since purple is yellow’s complimentary color, that seemed like a good direction to go in. What’s hard to see in the shrunken, internet-appropriate version of the image is how the yellow fabric is sliding off my face; the mask is coming off. And most importantly, I wanted to portray the optimism Rust found there at the very end. Maybe life isn’t all shit and misery. Maybe it’s full of beauty and wonder too. I’ll do my part to try and make that second part more and more true.